Dana Palmer

A FEW THINGS ABOUT THE ARTIST

1. What do you do when you’re not making art? (Day job etc...).

I am a life consultant / coach working with men & couples. I have also recently written a book (to be published in Jan 2021 about my father, the late cartoonist Alex Toth, and his last year of life.) The title is “MY FATHER, my faith: a daughter's true and inspiring story of medical advocacy and love's ability to heal.”

2. Why do you make art?

Art to me - whatever the expression / genre isn't just something you do, but rather a piece of who you are - the way you see life, interpret life - express life - to be shared.

3. What inspires you?

I was a photographer for 20 years... people inspired me. The body. But now, if I see the orange fall trees with the light - a grey blue sky - I want to photograph or paint that. It's a feeling... and when all the elements come together, i.e. composition, light, subject, color - it's “art.”

4. What/who are your influences?

I have some similarities to my father - simple, clean - love black and white. But I love impressionists... soft - a feeling. And abstract painters are fascinating to me. Diebenkorn. Ironically I was born in Santa Monica, CA (his famous series.)

5. If you could meet anyone dead or alive who would it be?

Wow... creatively? A few... John Lennon for one... love anyone who marries their words with their art - to see them “inside out.” And, a photographer named Ruth Bernhard. She lived to be 101. She photographed the body - nudes. I wrote to her once saying I'd come to her in San Francisco just to share a cup of coffee.